The Grey Mountains (or Ered Mithrin in Sindarin) was a large mountain range to the north of Rhovanion. They were the last remnants of the wall of the Iron Mountains, which once stretched all over the north of Middle-earth, but were broken at the end of the First Age.

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Description, and Geography

North of the Grey Mountains lay the Northern Waste.[1] This land was known as Dor Daedelos during the First Age, but most of it was destroyed in the breaking of Arda.

In the west, where the Grey Mountains met with the Misty Mountains rose Mount Gundabad, an ancient Dwarven holy site and later the capital for the Orcs of the north. The eastern end of the Grey Mountains was split into two chains, and in between lay the Withered Heath, where Dragons bred. After that was a wide hilly plain, until the Iron Hills continued the old line of the Iron Mountains again. Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, was not part of either range.[1]

From east to west the mountains stretched some 350 Númenórean Miles, and the sources of the Great River Anduin, the river Greylin, and the Forest River of Mirkwood arose in this range.[1]

History

Years of the Trees through the Second Age

Since sometime after the awakening of Durin the Deathless, the Longbeards had mined and colonized the Grey Mountains as part of their vast mountain territory. Through the First Age there was peace in the region, and the Dwarves explored and mined without hinderance. During the Second Age however after the War of Wrath, and the subsequent sinking of Beleriand, hordes of Orcs began to invade and make war against the Longbeards in the Grey and Misty Mountains as well as Mount Gundabad.[2] However the Orcs were eventually subdued for a time, and the Dwarves went back to work.

It seems that some Dwarves still dwelt in the Ered Mithrin during the late Third Age, so it is likely after the War of the Ring, the Dwarves drove whatever Drakes and Orcs were left totally from the mountains, and reclaimed the rest of their halls and mines in the Grey Mountains.